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Budget conference meeting resumes
The bicameral conference committee meeting continues its budget deliberation today at the conference room of House of Representatives of the Hon. Jesus P. Mafnas Memorial Building on Capital Hill.
The budget conference committee re-convenes at 1pm today to review and finalize House Bill 19-196 SS1 CCS1 together with the final Conference Committee Report.
The meeting enters its third day today after convening for the first time last Tuesday at 1:30pm and ended past 7pm. They started early yesterday and again finished late.
Their deliberation centered on the areas that were rejected by the House of Representatives. The House, in an emergency session last Saturday, voted 18-2 to reject the Senate’s version of HB 19-196.
The Senate reduced the funds of the Marianas Visitors Authority by $1.5 million and re-assigned it to other agencies and departments. The Saipan Mayor’s Office and the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services will be getting a combined $800,000.
Both the House and Senate panels, after two days of deliberation, are slowly meeting halfway in trying to resolve the issues that were the point of contention in the early part of discussions.
House vice speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) is the acting chairman of the House panel, while Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian) is his counterpart in the Senate being the Fiscal Affairs committee chair.
